Roses are NOT always red, my love!
To all of you - Happy Valentine's Day...!
And what a day it has been!
It was just wonderful, although it did not really start off that well.
Hubs has been "under the weather" today, well, at least this morning. We'd been up working till nearly 3:00 am - you know how it is with the internet! So, when we finally decided to tackle the day mid-morning, I suggested that since today was a special day, a day for lovers and love, and all that, perhaps we should just pack our laptops and go sit by the sea, maybe even splash out and have a spot of lunch, thinking that it always makes him feel better to be outside in the fresh air and under the sun, although, to be truthful, there was little sun to be seen at that moment.
I received one of his very typical replies to my suggestion:
"Oh, and here's me thinking we have Valentine's Day every day of the year!!
Grin!
"Except for Christmas Day, of course - Christmas Day is Christmas Day, can't change that..."
Another, bigger grin...!
<Sigh>... that British sense of humour!
Anyways, that was settled then. We'd go out.
I then made the "mistake" of getting online, slipping through the backdoor to take a peep inside Facebook, wanting to leave a message of Valentine's Day wishes on my wall...
Mistake... BIG mistake...! Well, not really a mistake but we didn't leave until about 2 pm!
What happened, I hear you ask?
Let me tell you.
When hubs enquired as to what I was doing, I explained that I had posted one of my favourite Greek love songs, S'Agapo, on my wall at FB, whereupon he suggested I could also put OUR song on, in other words, the German song I introduced him to more than 30 years ago, called DU, by Peter Maffay. What a brilliant idea I thought and did a YouTube search for a version we had discovered sometime last year, which we both loved very much. The "live" versions of the olden days can be a bit lacking in audio quality, but that particular one I had in mind was pretty good. Couldn't find it, though, so I went in search of an acceptable alternative and stumbled upon a young Romanian by the name of Aldo Blaga who had posted his own rendition of that famous song. Normally, I immediately switch off - or don't even open up- songs that aren't sung by performers I know, but my eye had caught a couple of comments below the YouTube screen and I gave it a go.
Guess what happened next?
We were hooked, and we went through several online performances of songs this young man had posted. It was really awesome, to borrow an American expression which is quite befitting here!
At some point, hubs and I literally dragged ourselves away from the laptop and got ready - there would be little point in going out if we procrastinated any longer...
As far as Aldo is concerned: he's got two new fans here now!
Back to the Special Day...
We'd left things so long that we decided to go straight for a bite to eat at one of our favourite places in Asprovalta. One of the Chefs there has become a good friend over the years and he greeted us with a big smile as soon as we came in, wishing us Xronia Polla - a phrase used in Greece for any celebration, meaning "many happy returns of the day" or something similar and precludes the wish relevant to the particular day. So today it was Xronia Polla for all the Valentines and Valentinas...
We had a delicious vegan lunch of "home-made" veggie dishes, all freshly cooked - my mouth is watering as I write this! Hubs had by then picked up considerably and was enjoying a little carafe of a highly palatable red table wine, of which I drank a couple of swigs, very much diluted with water, so that I could have a "Yamas!" - Cheers! - with our friends. You just CAN'T drink to anyone's health with a glass of water here...! (I don't normally take much notice of that, since I am a devout water drinker, but allowed myself a mouthful under the circumstances!)
At the end of the meal when I went over to settle the bill, I had a chat with the owner who was sitting at the counter, behind a computer screen, and somehow we got talking about internet, Facebook, websites etc. He was looking into setting up a site about the restaurant and I told him about my site, how I had managed to weave my way through all the bits and bobs that make instant website creation a pleasure to deal with and asked him if he wanted to see what I had managed to do so far. He did want to see. And that's when I had the SURPRISE of my life!
I'm definitely not one to re-hash old blog posts, but perhaps you can remember the one I posted about LOVE IS a little while ago - should have kept it for today, come to think of it! - where at the end of my post I add a picture taken in Asprovalta on a sunny day sometime in autumn last year. A little boy kissing a little girl on the cheek... I'd seen a group of kids with adults on the promenade and had asked if anyone objected me taking some photographs.
Now imagine this: here I am standing next to our friend the restaurant owner showing him how easy it is to include pictures in blogs, or anywhere really, and I scroll down to show him that particular picture... he looks at it and I see his mouth drop, literally, and he exclaims in utter surprise: That's my son! That's our Alex...!!!! He looked at me totally perplexed; I in turn must have had a really dumb look on my face. I didn't know his youngest son, I'd seen the elder kids but had no idea AT ALL that the shot I took that particular afternoon was of his youngest kissing the girl! He was thrilled to bits, absolutely over the moon and called the staff over to have a look. The place was relatively empty at that time, we had been rather late, so the customers were not really neglected, but with waiters and kitchen staff alike milling around the two of us at the PC, the poor clients were the last thing on our minds! :-) We all had a good laugh about it - what a coincidence! Life can be strange at time, can't it just!
In hindsight, I reflected, I'm really, really happy that it is my policy to ALWAYS, without exception, ask if I can take a shot if children are in the picture, in fact, if anyone recognizable is in the picture. I'd hate to find out that some irate parent would accidentally stumble across my display and take offence. It goes to show how easily one can find oneself in troubled waters!
This time round, though, seeing the picture of his son like that made the father so happy that he wanted to share it with the world... In fact, we downloaded it onto his desktop and I promised I'd send him the other shots I had...
Fancy that happening!
And that's it for today... I'm now happily tired; hubs has sufficiently recovered from I'd say being overworked, that he's enjoying... guess what? ... yes... some more Aldo Blaga!
And since neither of us is a selfish person, let me share with you the song he's listening to at this very moment - a fitting end of what we call a really "Smashing" Day...!
"Lady in Red" - Aldo's take on Chris de Burgh's cover.
Hubs has played it five times this evening, to my knowledge!
All I can say before signing off is: ENJOY!
Smiles,
Emm xx
And what a day it has been!
It was just wonderful, although it did not really start off that well.
Hubs has been "under the weather" today, well, at least this morning. We'd been up working till nearly 3:00 am - you know how it is with the internet! So, when we finally decided to tackle the day mid-morning, I suggested that since today was a special day, a day for lovers and love, and all that, perhaps we should just pack our laptops and go sit by the sea, maybe even splash out and have a spot of lunch, thinking that it always makes him feel better to be outside in the fresh air and under the sun, although, to be truthful, there was little sun to be seen at that moment.
I received one of his very typical replies to my suggestion:
"Oh, and here's me thinking we have Valentine's Day every day of the year!!
Grin!
"Except for Christmas Day, of course - Christmas Day is Christmas Day, can't change that..."
Another, bigger grin...!
<Sigh>... that British sense of humour!
Anyways, that was settled then. We'd go out.
I then made the "mistake" of getting online, slipping through the backdoor to take a peep inside Facebook, wanting to leave a message of Valentine's Day wishes on my wall...
Mistake... BIG mistake...! Well, not really a mistake but we didn't leave until about 2 pm!
What happened, I hear you ask?
Let me tell you.
When hubs enquired as to what I was doing, I explained that I had posted one of my favourite Greek love songs, S'Agapo, on my wall at FB, whereupon he suggested I could also put OUR song on, in other words, the German song I introduced him to more than 30 years ago, called DU, by Peter Maffay. What a brilliant idea I thought and did a YouTube search for a version we had discovered sometime last year, which we both loved very much. The "live" versions of the olden days can be a bit lacking in audio quality, but that particular one I had in mind was pretty good. Couldn't find it, though, so I went in search of an acceptable alternative and stumbled upon a young Romanian by the name of Aldo Blaga who had posted his own rendition of that famous song. Normally, I immediately switch off - or don't even open up- songs that aren't sung by performers I know, but my eye had caught a couple of comments below the YouTube screen and I gave it a go.
Guess what happened next?
We were hooked, and we went through several online performances of songs this young man had posted. It was really awesome, to borrow an American expression which is quite befitting here!
At some point, hubs and I literally dragged ourselves away from the laptop and got ready - there would be little point in going out if we procrastinated any longer...
As far as Aldo is concerned: he's got two new fans here now!
Back to the Special Day...
We'd left things so long that we decided to go straight for a bite to eat at one of our favourite places in Asprovalta. One of the Chefs there has become a good friend over the years and he greeted us with a big smile as soon as we came in, wishing us Xronia Polla - a phrase used in Greece for any celebration, meaning "many happy returns of the day" or something similar and precludes the wish relevant to the particular day. So today it was Xronia Polla for all the Valentines and Valentinas...
We had a delicious vegan lunch of "home-made" veggie dishes, all freshly cooked - my mouth is watering as I write this! Hubs had by then picked up considerably and was enjoying a little carafe of a highly palatable red table wine, of which I drank a couple of swigs, very much diluted with water, so that I could have a "Yamas!" - Cheers! - with our friends. You just CAN'T drink to anyone's health with a glass of water here...! (I don't normally take much notice of that, since I am a devout water drinker, but allowed myself a mouthful under the circumstances!)
At the end of the meal when I went over to settle the bill, I had a chat with the owner who was sitting at the counter, behind a computer screen, and somehow we got talking about internet, Facebook, websites etc. He was looking into setting up a site about the restaurant and I told him about my site, how I had managed to weave my way through all the bits and bobs that make instant website creation a pleasure to deal with and asked him if he wanted to see what I had managed to do so far. He did want to see. And that's when I had the SURPRISE of my life!
I'm definitely not one to re-hash old blog posts, but perhaps you can remember the one I posted about LOVE IS a little while ago - should have kept it for today, come to think of it! - where at the end of my post I add a picture taken in Asprovalta on a sunny day sometime in autumn last year. A little boy kissing a little girl on the cheek... I'd seen a group of kids with adults on the promenade and had asked if anyone objected me taking some photographs.
Now imagine this: here I am standing next to our friend the restaurant owner showing him how easy it is to include pictures in blogs, or anywhere really, and I scroll down to show him that particular picture... he looks at it and I see his mouth drop, literally, and he exclaims in utter surprise: That's my son! That's our Alex...!!!! He looked at me totally perplexed; I in turn must have had a really dumb look on my face. I didn't know his youngest son, I'd seen the elder kids but had no idea AT ALL that the shot I took that particular afternoon was of his youngest kissing the girl! He was thrilled to bits, absolutely over the moon and called the staff over to have a look. The place was relatively empty at that time, we had been rather late, so the customers were not really neglected, but with waiters and kitchen staff alike milling around the two of us at the PC, the poor clients were the last thing on our minds! :-) We all had a good laugh about it - what a coincidence! Life can be strange at time, can't it just!
In hindsight, I reflected, I'm really, really happy that it is my policy to ALWAYS, without exception, ask if I can take a shot if children are in the picture, in fact, if anyone recognizable is in the picture. I'd hate to find out that some irate parent would accidentally stumble across my display and take offence. It goes to show how easily one can find oneself in troubled waters!
This time round, though, seeing the picture of his son like that made the father so happy that he wanted to share it with the world... In fact, we downloaded it onto his desktop and I promised I'd send him the other shots I had...
Fancy that happening!
And that's it for today... I'm now happily tired; hubs has sufficiently recovered from I'd say being overworked, that he's enjoying... guess what? ... yes... some more Aldo Blaga!
And since neither of us is a selfish person, let me share with you the song he's listening to at this very moment - a fitting end of what we call a really "Smashing" Day...!
"Lady in Red" - Aldo's take on Chris de Burgh's cover.
Hubs has played it five times this evening, to my knowledge!
All I can say before signing off is: ENJOY!
Smiles,
Emm xx
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